If Assad falls, will Iran try to govern Syria directly?

In mid-April, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah paid a secret visit to Tehran where he met with the top Iranian officials headed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Gen. Qasem Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. Suleimani prepared an operational plan named after him based upon the establishment of a 150,000-man force for Syria, the majority of whom will come from Iran, Iraq, and a smaller number from Hizbullah and the Gulf states.

Suleimani’s involvement was significant. He has been the spearhead of Iranian military activism in the Middle East. In January 2012, he declared that the Islamic Republic controlled “one way or another” Iraq and South Lebanon. Even before recent events in Syria, observers in the Arab world have been warning for years about growing evidence of “Iranian expansionism.”

An important expression of Syria’s centrality in Iranian strategy was voiced by Mehdi Taaib, who heads Khamenei’s think tank. He recently stated that “Syria is the 35th district of Iran and it has greater strategic importance for Iran than Khuzestan [an Arab-populated district inside Iran].” Significantly, Taaib was drawing a comparison between Syria and a district that is under full Iranian sovereignty.

Tehran has had political ambitions with respect to Syria for years and has indeed invested huge resources in making Syria a Shiite state. The Syrian regime let Iranian missionaries work freely to strengthen the Shiite faith in Damascus and the cities of the Alawite coast, as well as the smaller towns and villages. In both urban and rural parts of Syria, Sunnis and others who adopted the Shiite faith received privileges and preferential treatment in the disbursement of Iranian aid money.

Iran is also recruiting Shiite forces in Iraq for the warfare in Syria. These are organized in a sister framework of Lebanese Hizbullah. Known as the League of the Righteous People and Kateeb Hizbullah, its mission is to defend the Shiite centers in Damascus. It is likely that Tehran will make every effort to recruit additional Shiite elements from Iraq, the Persian Gulf, and even from Pakistan.

I’ve said before that Syria is Iran’s lynchpin on the Western side of the Fertile Crescent, without which the position of its proxy army in Lebanon, Hizbullah, becomes almost untenable, and one of the arguments for Western intervention in Syria has been that it would gravely weaken Iran’s influence in the region. So, it’s at least plausible.

But, would they? It would truly be a desperate act, greatly increasing the danger in the area. It’s hard to imagine Israel tolerating what in essence would be a Persian satrapy on its border, when said “Persian Empire” has promised to rain nuclear fire on Israel.

And could they? The effort to control Syria, even with remnants of the Syrian Army and Hizbullah to help, would be a tremendous drain on Iranian resources of manpower and wealth, and it would certainly mean ratcheting up the pressure on Iraq, passage through whose territory Iran would need to resupply its forces. I have trouble believing they could maintain such a long-distance operation.

I’ve no idea how reliable General Shapira’s analysis is, but dictatorships have done crazier things in the past.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 6th, 2013 at 14:46 and is filed under Foreign Affairs, Iran, Syria. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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